The new mayor of Ronda, Rocky Gabatan.
“Help solve the crime.”
This was the first marching order of Senior Supt. Manuel Abrugena, director of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO), as the new police chief of the Ronda Police Station arrived on Friday to replace his counterpart who was booted out following the assassination of Mayor Mariano Blanco III.
Still without any suspects and concrete evidence, Abrugena challenged Senior Insp. Reynato Albuera, the new Ronda police chief, to step up and help the Task Force Blanco unmask the perpetrators behind the murder of the town mayor.
“We need to resolve this case the soonest possible time,” Abrugena said in an interview on Friday.
Albuera, who was the former deputy chief of the Minglanilla Police Station, replaced Senior Insp. Jay Soto Palcon who along with 10 others were relieved from their posts for their failure to promptly respond to the killing of Blanco.
A turnover of command was held on Friday morning at the Ronda Police Station in the presence of Supt. Anthony Bagarinao, deputy provincial police director for administration, who came to represent Abrugena.
At least 10 policemen from the Mobile Force Company of the CPPO are expected to report to the Ronda Police Station today to assist Albuera.
With the arrival of the new set of policemen, the strength of the Ronda Police Station now stands at 21.
Abrugena, speaking to reporters in Cebu City, said he instructed Albuera to request for an additional force from the Regional Mobile Force Battalion based in Moalboal town.
Getting to know the town Albuera, in a separate interview, said he was still familiarizing with his new assignment as well as the people of Ronda.
“Dili pa kaayo ko suhito diri (I’m not yet familiar with the place),” he told Cebu Daily News.
Albuera said he was planning to intensify the government’s campaign against illegal drugs and other crimes in Ronda.
Last Wednesday, a group of four armed men barged into the office of Blanco at the municipal hall at around 1:30 a.m. and repeatedly shot the mayor.
Based on the report by two job order watchmen, four unidentified persons suddenly arrived on board a white van, pointed their guns at them and instructed them to drop to the ground.
They said they later heard bursts of gunfire. They rushed to the mayor’s office after the armed men had fled and found the bloodied body of Blanco inside his office.
When the incident happened, only two policemen were left in the station and did not respond to the shooting incident which was just five meters away from their station.
The other nine policemen who were on duty that night went all out — some serving an arrest warrant against a suspect and others out on a roving patrol.
Chief Supt. Debold Sinas, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), on Thursday relieved all the 11 policemen on duty, including then police chief Palcon.
Abrugena said investigators would continue to look for evidence to solve Blanco’s murder.
Persons of interest
On Friday, Abrugena announced that they have identified at least two “persons of interest” in the killing of Blanco, although he declined to identify or give other information about these individuals so as not to disrupt the ongoing investigation.
While these two individuals could not be considered suspects, Abrugena said they could help shed light on the crime.
Abrugena said they were looking at personal grudge, politics, and illegal drugs as among the possible motives behind the killing.
Investigators were also looking at the possibility that the killing of Blanco was related to the murder of his nephew, Ronda Vice Mayor Jonnah John Ungab, last February. Ungab was driving his car with his wife Pearl on board just outside the courthouse in Cebu City when he was repeatedly shot by still unknown assailant on Feb. 19, 2018.
Ungab was the legal counsel of confessed Cebuano drug lord Kerwin Espinosa.
Blanco, on the other hand, was linked by President Rodrigo Duterte to the illegal drugs trade, an allegation that the mayor had denied.
It was not politics
Blanco’s eldest daughter Ann Marie said they have yet to receive any update from the police.
But she said she could not believe that the killing of her father had something to do with politics or it had any connection with the Ungabs.
“That’s impossible. I don’t think they (Ungabs) can do that to my father,” she told CDN.
Ungab’s brother Jonald had previously floated the possibility that the killing of his brother Jonnah John had something to do with politics.
In the 2016 elections, Jonald ran against Blanco but lost.
Yesterday, however, Jonald’s son John Majed said they appreciated the trust of the Blanco family.
“While we may have differed in our political views, it cannot change the fact that there was a time we were a solid and unified family,” he said in a text message to CDN.
John Majed refused to comment further.
Like the Ungabs, the Blancos were also contemplating on seeking the assistance of the National
Bureau of Investigation to help identify the perpetrators.
“We have yet to decide as a family,” said Ann Marie, the eldest of Blanco’s four children.
New mayor
Meanwhile, newly assumed Ronda Mayor Rocky Gabatan said he was going through all the transactions and official businesses that were left behind by Blanco.
“I need to attend to these otherwise our employees won’t receive their salaries,” he said.
Gabatan said he also needed to distribute the funding assistance to the participants of the Panaghiusa Festival, one of the highlights of the town’s fiesta scheduled on September 15.
Gabatan and Councilor Harold James Llego assumed as mayor and vice mayor of Ronda, respectively, last Wednesday afternoon, just hours after Blanco’s death as mandated by the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Gabatan was the town’s first councilor when he was appointed vice mayor to succeed Ungab.
He said they have yet to choose who would fill the now two vacant positions in the municipal council.
“We’ll have to do that after Mayor Blanco’s burial (on September 16),” Gabatan said.